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Caroline Kettlewell: About
I only ever wanted to be a writer. Perhaps this
is because I come from people who are both bookish and wordy, often
simultaneously. Perhaps it is because I grew up in the South, where
impractical romanticism seeps into your pores, inspired by Flannery
O’Connor and Stanley Kowalski’s heaving, sweaty passion,
and you imagine that spending whole days at a time wrestling a single
paragraph into submission is a respectable pursuit for an adult.
But I was born in the North, to Northern parents,
and even an entire childhood spent amidst a Faulknerian landscape
of honeysuckle and simmering repressions couldn’t overcome
my native Yankee pragmatism. A good Yankee begins her first piggy
bank in kindergarten with an eye towards retirement planning for
the next 65 years. I knew that a writer’s life would be all
about budget-brand macaroni-and-cheese and dunning notices from
my creditors.
Thus, despite being utterly ill-suited for work
involving regular hours, pantyhose, and the ability to say “skill
set” with a straight face, not long after graduating from Williams
College (BA, cum laude, in English, in case you wanted to know)
I put my liberal arts degree to no use whatsoever for an extended stint
as an office drone in Corporate America. Let’s gloss over
this painful interlude, shall we?
Eventually, throwing off the shackles of corporate servitude, I escaped to grad school at George Mason University, where I earned an
MA in English, in non-fiction writing and editing, and wrote the
essay that eventually turned into my first book, Skin Game,
and my literary debut as a paragon of good mental health. Skin
Game, by the way, also has been published in Japan. Can't read
a word of that edition, I confess--for all I know it's actually
Huckleberry Finn in translation--but it looks really cool
on my bookshelf.
Skin Game explores the I've-never-quite-figured-out-how-to-introduce-into-casual-conversation topic of self-injury, and thus it is not necessarily something that
you want to read over lunch. Nevertheless, it has been deeply moving to hear from readers literally from around the world telling me what the book has meant to them. It has been my honor
as well regularly to be asked to speak on the subject at various events--including, for example, a couple of American Association of Suicidology
annual conferences. Perhaps you didn't know there is an American
Association of Suicidology? Frankly, neither did I, but now I have
the canvas tote bag to prove it.
Feeling that one memoir was probably plenty enough
and then some, I decided to cut loose and have some
fun with my second book. The result is the lively true tale of
long odds and underdogs, Electric Dreams. In these times
when there seems to be a bottomless supply of overwhelmingly depressing
and discouraging news from every quarter, I thought we could use
a good, inspiring read to remind us that we all have the power to
help change the world. Film rights to Electric Dreams, originally optioned by Participant Productions, have subsequently spun into the Hollywood limbo known as "turnaround," butwe all keep our fingers crossed that some day, someday, not so very far in the future, this story will be coming to a multiplex near you.
Meanwhile, as a freelance writer, I've been a
regular contributor of travel, adventure, and other feature stories
to The Washington Post, among other publications, and I've
written on topics including a wilderness survival class; a university-level competition
to design and build solar-powered homes; an urban tribe; the roof-rack as lifestyle
statement. And thanks to a story I wrote in 2007 on open water swimming, that sport has become my new obsession. (Read all about it on my other blog, OWSwimRVA.)
As for other c.v. kind of stuff: I've
been a guest on The Diane Rehm Show, New York and Company, & Voices in the Family on Philadelphia public radio station
WHYY; I've been a panelist/speaker at numerous conferences, seminars, book events, and whatnot;
my work has been included in the anthologies Tales out
of School: Contemporary Writers on their Student Years (Beacon
Press, 2001) and Reflections on Anthropology: A Four-Field
Reader (McGraw-Hill, 2004); I co-chaired the board of the non-profit James River Writers from January 2006-December 2007 and continue to edit JRW's bi-weekly e-newsletter, Get Your Word On, which reaches some 1500 subscribers; I've built a demonstration electric motor out of tape, magnets, a plastic cup, paperclips, and some wire; I have a great recipe for
brownies, recently published in the delightful Art 180 community cookbook, If You Were a Food, What Would You Be?; and I can sing the opening ten lines of John Dryden’s
"Absalom and Achitophel” to the tune of
the 1974 Terry Jacks hit song "Seasons in the Sun."
And people say that an English degree is a waste of time....
Oh yes, and I'm known for my brevity.
Date updated: 08.01.08
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